The All Black propaganda, sorry, public-relations machine is a long-standing
adjunct to the success of the New Zealand rugby team and particularly the
All Black brand.

Until Tuesday of this week it had been in overdrive since recognising the threat of Kiwi hooker, Keven Mealamu, being banned for headbutting the prone England captain, Lewis Moody, last Saturday.

The PR battle was lost by the Kiwis and Mealamu was banned by an IRB disciplinary panel for four weeks for “striking with the head”.

Unless his appeal is successful, he will take no further part in the tour.

For Mealamu, and rugby generally, it was fortunate that the incident was not shown on the stadium screens at Twickenham and his cheap-shot was left for the consideration of the few hundred thousand viewers watching on Sky.

Had the act been replayed several times, as happened with a headbutt delivered by Springbok Bakkies Botha on Kiwi Jimmy Cowan this year, there would have been an outcry with Mealamu being barracked for the rest of the game.

Had it been live on the BBC, the PR battle would have been even harder because the outcry would have also come from a few million casual watchers, thereby tainting the image of rugby in general.

From the video evidence and to anybody who has played rugby, this was a simple case of nastiness.

That said, the background factors are worth looking at because they are generally unknown and demonstrate the way in which subtle issues affect the aftermath of an incident and the problems they pose for those trying to manage the fallout.

The first mistake was for the Kiwi press liaison officer to harangue any reporter having the temerity to ask Mealamu about the incident as he left the field.

The media-friendly Richie McCaw was incongruously available and while you could say this was no more than an attempt to limit potentially prejudicial comment, the availability of only certain players and only allowing certain questions is a PR error as it draws attention to the issue and adds the further charge of spin.

In this case it was backed by unpleasantness which taints the attitude of any journalist witnessing the confrontation.

Advice to highlight Mealamu’s disciplinary record might have been correct if it had been religiously adhered to but “he is not that sort of player” was the line taken.

This was amplified by coach Graham Henry, who said: “He’s probably the cleanest player in the world, isn’t he? It was purely accidental as far as I know.”

In law the prosecution is not allowed to present evidence of previous nefariousness by the accused solely for the purpose of tarnishing reputation, but the PR arena has no such precise distinctions; it is all about perception.

Once the issue of character in general was raised, most non-Kiwi fans were free to aver that Mealamu’s previous innocence would not have been maintained had the Scottish verdict of “not proven” been open to the tribunals.

Mealamu was cited for his involvement in spearing Brian O’Driscoll in the first Lions Test of 2005. (It wasn’t a spear tackle because that involves the technicality of someone having possession of the ball).

Although the citing commissioner found insufficient evidence, the IRB later issued a statement calling the act “unacceptably dangerous”; technically innocent; publicly otherwise.

In the same series Danny Grewcock was banned for two months for biting Mealamu’s fingers and there was insufficient evidence to prove Grewcock’s allegation that Mealamu was trying to hook his mouth.

Thus Mealamu was again innocent, but the public were left wondering why his fingers were in Grewcock’s mouth in the first place.

When you are suspiciously seen standing in the crowd at several fires it is only a matter of time before you become the suspected arsonist.

The stressing of Mealamu’s Christianity was also ill-advised because it is irrelevant. Anyway, didn’t Christians administer the Inquisition?

Anyone of middle age, which is most of the IRB and its officers, will remember the attempted PR spin and resultant furore after the 1993 game when Kiwi flanker Jamie Joseph was not punished for stamping on England scrum-half Kyran Bracken’s ankle in the first few minutes.

Joseph was pictured acting as a friendly waiter in a subsequent photo opportunity and it would be human nature to relate the two events when confronted by any form of media-control tactics.

No doubt the Kiwis thought they were on to a winner in hiring solicitor Owen Eastwood to represent Mealamu; also a Kiwi and involved in the reduction of sentence achieved by Harlequins’ Tom Williams for his part in Bloodgate.

They should have realised there was widespread unease about Williams’s reduced sentence and unanswered questions about it.

The man who heard Mealamu’s case, Lorne D Crerar, was in charge of the Bloodgate hearings for European Rugby Cup Ltd.

There are similarly unanswered questions about the decision to release the Williams judgment eight days before the other judgments.

Thus, Crerar’s stewardship of this matter would attract much attention and he would be keen to avoid further controversy.

Thankfully, the right verdict was reached. As for the length of the ban, McCaw is unhappy England hooker Dylan Hartley was not charged for a forearm cheap-shot on him.

We should thank him for raising the issue of inconsistency. Hartley was lucky and could not have complained about a two-week ban, but McCaw failed to mention Mealamu’s ban was half the usual sentence and that Botha got nine weeks for butting.

However, we should note that McCaw stressed, “I don’t like to be bitching and moaning about it”.